Everything’s changed. And privacy will keep changing just as the way we access and use data is. ictQATAR recently held its latest “Connected Speakers” event, which featured Jules Polonetsky, Director and Chair of the Future of Privacy Forum. Jules spoke to ictQATAR about how social media, mobile and online advertising are changing the future of privacy.

Check out this video interview to know more about what tomorrow’s privacy will be like:

A bit scary, right? This comes directly from the website of the Future of Privacy Forum, which is a Washington, DC-based think tank that seeks to advance responsible data practices in the digital age. Jules Polonetsky, the Director and Co-Chair of the Future of Privacy Forum will be in Doha on Monday, November 28 as part of ictQATAR’s Connected Speakers Series. (Register here) Jules, a former Chief Privacy Officer at AOL, is one of the leading experts on privacy in the world, and his current focus areas are online data use, smart grid, mobile data, apps and social media.

I spoke with Jules a few weeks ago as he was preparing for his talk and was truly astounded by the sheer amount of data that is out there about each and every one of us, and just how little regulation there is about how this data is used. The fact is, each of us willingly shares more and more data each day, whether it is through our favorite websites, a mobile application or via various social media networks. The Internet has certainly made sharing easier and more of the norm, so it’s likely we will continue to share more about ourselves online. The question then is, how can we be sure this data is used responsibly and that we are protected from serious risks? Clearly there are tons of innovative uses of this data, but what is the line between innovation and privacy? I’ll leave that to Jules to answer during his talk!

For anyone that is interested in learning more about the future of privacy, particularly online privacy, I highly recommend checking out the resources on Future of Privacy Forum website, and of course, don’t miss Jules’ talk on Monday, November 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the Sharq. To register, visit the event’s Eventbrite page. Also, feel free to submit any questions via comments and I’ll share them with Jules before his talk. Hope to see you there!

ICANN, the Internet body in charge of naming and numbering (essentially the systems that make the Internet interoperable and seem so seamless), was in Doha this week to discuss a new initiative that will open-up the generic top-level domain (gTLD) naming system (the part that comes after the dot). It will no longer be just .com, .gov, or .net, but it could be .Brian, .mercedes, or even .Doha. Touting it as one of the biggest changes in Internet history, ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom shared details of how his organization would start accepting applications for new gTLDs and encouraged organizations in Qatar to consider applying. As he said, ICANN is “opening up the right of the dot.”

The potential marketing and branding benefits of having your own gTLD seems enormous. With the ever increasing scarcity of .com’s left, we have all had to settle for a less than ideal URL. Having your own gTLD opens up an immense pool of ways you can creatively use the domains. Have a campaign? Create a URL using your gTLD like www.summer.pepsi. Are you city with a great festival coming. Well how about www.tribeca.doha. As Beckstrom said in his talk, the new gTLD initiative is developed to allow for creativity and innovation on the Internet and no doubt there are many ways these could be used that we aren’t even imaging right now.

ICANN President Rod Beckstrom and ictQATAR Assistant Secretary General, Regulatory Authority, Christa Maria Cramer

So what should companies in Qatar know if they want to apply? First, it’s expensive! Applying for a gTLD, requires a $185,000 non-refundable application fee. Steep, but ICANN doesn’t want anyone and everyone to have control of these domains. Beckstrom said protecting the security and integrity of the Internet is their first priority, so any company or organization applying for a gTLD must have the resources to manage that domain. They will need to operate like a registrar, finding ways to manage the distribution of the domains, and likely developing a business model around this. Clearly this is much more involved than securing a second level domain, like Brian.com (which btw I don’t own) – this is far more serious business!

Second, companies and organizations should know that the window for application is short. The application process only goes from January 12, 2012 – April 12, 2012. The application itself is intensive – Beckstrom said a successful submission would likely require at least 100 pages of information. He also said that ICANN has no plans to make the timeframe longer, so interested parties should act fast. He cautioned that ICANN was unlikely to have an open application process for gTLDs for many years.

Other things to consider if you want to apply for a gTLD is whether you have clear rights to a name. For example, the rights to something like .Mercedes is pretty clear, but what about .Music or .Art? All gTLDs that are applied for will be shared publicly so objections can be filed and if a valid objection is filed, ICANN may decide to reject the application – bye-bye $185,000! Also, there may be cases where multiple parties apply for a gTLD. In this case, ICANN will give preference to a community group over a private organization if there are no clear trademark rights. This means, if a community group in Doha wanted .Doha, and so did a private tourism enterprise, the community group would be granted the rights if all were equal. Yes, disputes over gTLDs could get a bit complicated, and here is a decent chance your application might get rejected.

The new generic Top-Level Domain Names certainly are an interesting change to the Internet and I will certainly be watching to see how this change might impact the web. Already cities have expressed interest in gTLDs, such as New York (.NYC) and Berlin (.berlin), and undoubtedly many major companies will apply as well. The earliest we will see these go live on the Internet though would be early 2013. I’m not sure this is “one of the biggest changes in Internet history,” but it is certainly one that has the chance to encourage some great marketing and branding creativity over the Internet.

These days, it’s all about how customers can find you and location specific domain names make it easier for search engines to surface the most relevant, Qatar specific information. Companies should think of their online presence as another “outlet.” .QA is just like a sign above the door that tells search engines and potential customers that you are in Qatar.

Doha-based Alsubaey Photography is one company taking advantage of the Qatar domain names through its www.alsubaey.qa website. Customers who are looking for Doha based photographers can easily find Abdulrahman Alsubaey’s landing page through organic search, yet companies with similar profile, but without .qa domain names don’t even pop up in searches and directories. This is just a quick example of how smart business people are embracing marketing on a shoestring budget.

There are twenty-something generic top-level domains, or those letters located to the right of the dot in a Web address, including .com, .gov, and geographically specific .qa. Most companies are well familiar with .com, but do not always take advantage of opportunities presented by country specific names like .qa. Unlike .com, there is no scarcity of names; it offers brand protection; and with appropriate marketing can reduce promotional costs. Rumor has it that both Apple and Google have already registered their .qa domain names, and these two players know a thing or two about marketing.

And the good news is Qatar-specific domain names are now available to the general public . If you are in the market for a personal website, you should grab your domain before anybody else does. You don’t want to be facing a situation where you build a personal site or a Web business only to find out later that you don’t own it. A fashion retailer, French Connection, faced this challenge a few years ago – they fought and lost a court case in the UK over one of their brand names. Trying to win the rights to a website name can be tedious and costly, and a lot of companies prefer taking a defensive registrations route.

It is common sense that your website domain name bears your personal name or the name of your business, but you shouldn’t stop there. Campaign or product specific URLs offer a unique way to direct customers to targeted online content. For example, if your business is Doha Bakery and your product is called Red Velvet Cupcakes, then get a domain name called www.dohabakery.qa and www.redvelvetcupcakes.qa. You can have both of these domain names pointing to different pages of your site. This way, your website will pop up in organic searches for both – customers who can only remember your product name, as well as those who recall your corporate name or location.

If your business’s name is hard to spell, you may also want to get a domain name with the incorrect spelling to capture the audience that otherwise wouldn’t be able to find you. You can also capitalize on your location by acquiring dohacars.qa, for example. Purchasing multiple domain names doesn’t mean that you have to have content on every single site – you can set up each domain name to redirect and feed traffic to your current home page.

While the core elements of marketing remain pretty much the same, it is no secret that customers’ behavior is shifting to the Web and as online activities become more of a standard, most companies now include a domain name on corporate materials, including business cards and advertising. Qatar specific domain name can provide powerful message about your business and heritage and is an opportunity not to be missed. Registering is easy – visit the Qatar Domains Registry website to first check the availability of the specific domain name, and if the name is available, you will be directed to a list of registrars to purchase from.

It's time for Arabic hashtags!

If you are an Arabic speaker and on Twitter, you’ve probably come across the increasing demands from the Arabic-speaking community in Qatar and the Arab world for Twitter to start supporting Arabic hashtags.

With the #letstweetinarabic movement going strong in Qatar and spreading in other Arab countries, Twitter is increasingly becoming a hub for quality Arabic e-content. But users in the Arab world are want more from Twitter than just their great platform – they want to be able to index their content in their own language through Arabic hashtags that match the Arabic e-content that they’re creating there.

We want more than just a hashtag though. We also want Twitter’s support of an Arabic interface that allows users to have Arabic usernames, index content via Arabic hashtags and have their profile settings and site-wide instructions in the Arabic language. This is a move that other social networking websites, most notably Facebook, have already taken in recognition of the great numbers of users from the Arab world.

But for now let’s focus on the hastags and why having Arabic hashtags is important– and  yes we did have to use the English #letstweetinarabic for our Arabic campaign!

Here are ten reasons why I think Twitter needs to support Arabic hashtags:

1. Arabic Content Indexing: It’s simple – the main function of Twitter hashtags is that they help organize Twitter streams and index content just like a funnel in which a variety of content goes through or a book with millions of pages that needs an index to help readers recognize the various topics rather than browsing millions of pages. With over 22 million tweets generated by users from the Arab word during the first quarter of 2011 (as per the Dubai School of Governance Twitter Report), it is evident that content indexing in Arabic is quite needed at the moment.
2. Increase Opportunities for Arabic Speakers’ Usage of Twitter: Recent figures say the estimated figure of the active Twitter users in the Arab world is around 1.15 million (out of an estimated Arabic Twitter population of over 6 million). Not all of these users are equally proficient in English & Arabic and the latter remains their native language. An Arabic Twitter interface, and subsequently, an Arabic Twitter hashtag means wider access for those who either can only read and write Arabic or actually prefer to express their thoughts and tweet in Arabic.
3. Increase Quantity of Arabic e-Content on Twitter: The current tweeting rate in the Arab world is around 252,000 tweets a day which means 175 tweets a minute or 3 tweets per second. Arabic hashtags will motivate users to post more tweets, knowing that they can easily index them in Arabic.
4. Widening the Reach of Arabic e-content posted on Twitter: Hashtags facilitate re-tweeting, improves content visibility and increases the probability of people seeing the indexed content and acting upon it. Having this for Arabic e-content will certainly increase the amount of Arabic tweets hence the percentage of Arabic e-content posted on Twitter as a platform.
5. Improving the Interactivity of Arabic e-Content Posted on Twitter: we all know that Twitter isn’t just about posting tweets – that’s just a small part of it. If you are familiar with Klout scores, you probably know that your Klout score will not go up unless your followers act upon your content. Since hashtags allow for more content visibility, this opens more conversation streams around the indexed topic and with Arabic hashtags, and more conversations can easily arise among Arabic speakers.
6. Better Usability, Easier Search: For Arabic speakers, searching for Arabic themes or topics using English hashtags can be a daunting process due to a major linguistic difference between Arabic and English. Due to the absence of Arabic language support in various social sites and apps, Arabic users have turned to an “English-Arabic” style whereby they write Arabic words using English language characters(Latin characters) to compensate for the lack of Arabic support. Arabic hashtags will guarantee better usability in that regard, as users will no longer have to express meanings using dispersed, multiple ways in English. For example, to hashtag a topic for العربية, there are over 5 or 6 ways an English hashtag can be written (#3arabeya, #3arabiya, #3arabeyah, arabeyah..etc). Like Internationalized Internet Domains, Arabic hashtags will unify this process and have users no longer guessing how to index using Latin characters.
7. More Trending Opportunities, Better Visibility: We all check daily for the top trending topics on Twitter and they are all (or mostly) top trending hashtags. With Arabic hashtags being activated and supported on Twitter, this increases chances that they could make it to the top trending topics as long as there are sufficient conversations around them. This allows not just for better visibility for Arabic e-content, but also grows global conversations around those topics for all Arabic speaking people around the world who, yes, are not just located in the Middle East.
8. Equal Importance Assigned to Arabic: Twitter now supports Latin languages (French, English, Italian..etc), Russian, Korean, Chinese and most recently Japanese. With all these languages supported, Arabic hashtags will be a move that gives equal importance to the Arabic language.
9. Matching Rising Twitter Usage Figures in the Arab World: Like any product, it’s all about supply & demand. Demand for Twitter in the Arab world is definitely growing, especially since the beginning of 2011. In a country like Qatar, Twitter usage is booming to an extent that Qatar is now the top Arab country in terms of Twitter penetration (an assessment of active Twitter users divided by total population figures – a percentage that has become close to 8% by Q1 2011). More demand means higher need for supply – whether in terms of technical support or wider support for other languages such as Arabic.
10. Encouraging the Usage of Arabic Characters: as mentioned in point 6, Arabic hashtags means less dependence of Arab users on Latin-characters equivalents to index Arabic words as topics. More usage of Arabic characters as عربي instead of 3arabi for instance does enhance Arabic e-content in a way and provides less confusion when it comes to content indexing in Arabic.

Let’s start asking Twitter to support hashtags at this link!

Hand-in-hand: Technology and society

Recently ictQATAR released Qatar’s ICT Landscape Report 2011 too and the findings, not surprisingly reflect those of the GITR 2011. The report showcases strong growth in overall ICT usage and penetration rates. It found that increasing number of households is now connected. It also found a fantastic array of penetration of computers, mobile phones, Internet, and broadband connectivity. But at the same time the figures also show that there is much that can be done by SMEs in the country to adopt technology to enhance their online business.

Figures for companies that have online business are really dismal. So are the figures for online transactions by consumers. It’s a vicious cycle if you ask me. No online consumers, so SMEs don’t feel any pressure to buck-up their online presence or facilities. And vice versa. Would you buy something online if there were reliable, dependable options available? I would.

Technology spurs growth in small businesses

Having said that it seems like we are on the right track to boost our rankings in the future. It’s encouraging to see that the relevant agencies and organizations are already addressing some of the concerns. Earlier, Gulf Times and other newspapers carried a report about Qtel‘s breakthrough research into the growth of SMEs. The study which looks into Qatar’s commercial environment shows that 60% of companies are looking to invest in services that support a high quality of customer service. For customer acquisition and retention, Qtel is working with many local companies to provide wireless Internet hotspot access, which can help generate an increased speed of 50% per customer on average in restaurants and cafes where the Internet is available. These steps, to me, will help us forge ahead.

Then there is the question of real penetration among the transient population of Qatar – the blue collar workers. Again, there are individuals and organizations that are mapping out strategies to bridge existing gaps to provide the right technology and skills to bring ICT to this huge proportion of Qatar’s population. What are the main needs or requirements of the transient workforce here? The two main needs are related to their families back home in their countries of origin – sending them money and communicating to them regularly.

Another comprehensive study by Social & Economic Survey Research Institute titled – Migrant Labor Workers in Qatar: Demographic Profile, Employment and Working Conditions, Remittances, Quality of Life and Future Outlook – has some figures that should inspire us to take initiative. The study shows that only 36% of the migrant population uses bank transfers to send money back home. There is a huge potential here to entice the rest of the workers to use technology to do the same.

Vodafone Qatar has already initiated a mobile money transfer app for workers in Qatar. Called, Vodafone Money Transfer, this app allows workers to load money onto their phone and then send it to their families anywhere in the world.

ictQATAR is embarking on a collaborative initiative that could give the much-needed push to improve our rankings. Patsy Quinn, E-Inclusion Section Manager in ICT & Society division of ictQATAR elaborates, “This initiative would engage low skilled, migrant workers, residing in labor camps with limited access to technology, content or services, low skills, low levels of literacy, through partnership with one or more employers in Qatar and provide them with support to communicate with their families, engage with online services and develop financial and digital literacy.”

So how can we up the ante and move the nation higher up in the ranking? We as the people, business owners, entrepreneurs, and youth of the country must fully integrate the use of ICT among individuals and institutions. We need to leverage the three fundamental characteristics of ICT:

• its ability to spread across all economic sectors;
• its ability to constantly improve over time; and
• its ability to facilitate new approaches and solutions

Once we have ensured that the above are done, there is no stopping Qatar from reaching the top. If Singapore could do it, so can we.

When was the last time you sent out a hard copy of your CV? Maybe you submitted one at a career fair, but more likely you sent an electronic version that was then passed around digitally many times before you ever got a call for an interview. Since the CV is already being shared digitally, why not use some of the amazing digital media and resources to truly show who you are – differentiate yourself for your potential employers – especially in the ultra-competitive marketplace of today!

Not surprisingly, there are numerous websites that you can use to help create a more effective digital CV. My favorite site is VisualCV. They demonstrate very well what a great digital CV could be. I highly recommend checking it out.

VisualCV isn’t just a summary of your skills and accomplishments, but rather it positions you as a brand worthy of remark. It allows you to build a unique self-presentation using video, audio, graphs, testimonials, and relevant links. The service is free and takes relatively little time to put together. It also works well in tandem with your LinkedIn profile, linking each to the other, and providing that much more information about you.

You can also check out other sites that offer similar services, including Doodlebit, Interactive Resume Services, Emurse, and Vision-Resume. In addition, some job boards, like Bayt.com, go the distance and encourage candidates upload video CVs. Whatever the final product is called – Web bio, portfolio, a visual vitae, a web resume, it certainly is no longer the traditional CV.

This trend to multimedia online elaboration and expansion of your professional self will only continue to grow and, I believe, it will soon be the death knell for the traditional CV. As search firms, recruiters, and employers use ever more thorough searches online to uncover the top candidates and stars, be sure you are ahead of the curve and build yourself a truly powerful multimedia CV today!

Disco Security. Shot by Julie Starr

Do you like cyber-music? If your answer is in the affirmative, could you please explain the difference between music and cyber-music? Fret not if you can’t. Instead, ask Marcus J. Ranum, credited for many innovations in the firewall technology, the same question and he will retort: “Does putting ‘cyber’ in front of something automatically mean it’s new, different or, more interesting?” And then he answers his own question to emphasize the anomaly, “No, it doesn’t. Music is music, cyber or otherwise.”

Ranum, in Qatar recently as a speaker at the Information Security Conference “New Trends in the Energy Sector” organized by QCERT, says he’s really irked when people get carried away by the use of the word “cyber”.  Music is just one of the simpler analogies he uses. But you can easily apply it to other more definitive concepts like cyber-war, cyber-criminal, cyber-spy, cyber-terrorist, and so on.  Considering he’s been in the information security sector for more than 20 years, he would know.

WikiLeaks

Cyber-criminals and cyber-terrorists, for instance, are poles apart. A cyber-criminal is like bacteria – you take antibiotics to get rid of bacteria and it works initially…but if you keep taking antibiotics again and again, bacteria becomes immune to the mechanism. Once cyber-criminals understand your tactics used as defense against them, they improvise, and find new and creative ways to infiltrate your firewall.  Cyber-criminals are secretive, profit-driven and operate on a hit & run modus operandi. Once a scam they perpetrate in a region is publically known, they move on to a new place. They rapidly shift to where the money is and commonsense isn’t.

Cyber-terrorists, on the other hand, are interested in letting everyone know what they have done. Their tactic is also hit & run, but they operate to create fear and believe in high-visibility for their acts. “WikiLeaks,” says Ranum, “is a perfect example of cyber-terror.” Wikileaks could have been an act of cyber-crime, if for instance, rather than making all the “leaks” public, they had started blackmailing governments.

Whether it is music, war, crime, war or terrorism, once you add “cyber” it doesn’t mean anything different from the original word. Cyber-war would need as much attention to detail, planning, strategy, manpower (maybe a tad less), money and logistics as the real, physical war would. So what’s the big deal? According to Ranum, “nothing.”  So if war and cyber-war are not much different wouldn’t weapons and cyber-weapons be almost the same?  The author of “The Myth of Homeland Security” (he’s the man who set up the White House email and whitehouse.gov), replies with a confidence hardly found in us lesser techie mortals, “One of the most valuable tools in such a situation would be counter-intelligence.”

Counter-intelligence has been used in warfare for times immemorial. And that truly can be a cyber-weapon worth fighting any cyber-war or cyber-crime or cyber-terror or cyber-espionage, etc.  So if you are prone to a cyber-attack, stay vigilant and keep trying to find out more and more about the attack. If they can break into your code, so can you. And this is the only effective way to counter any cyber attacks.

Watch the video below for Ranum’s candid comments and useful insights about relevance of firewall, antivirus, future of security, open source products, cloud computing security and of course, cyber-war. We interviewed Ranum at the Information Security Conference.

Editor’s note: Marcus J. Ranum, Chief Security Officer of Tenable Security, Inc., is a world-renowned expert on security system design and implementation.  At Tenable he is responsible for research in open source logging tools, and product training. He is more recognized as an early innovator in firewall technology, and the implementer of the first commercial firewall product.

I don’t speak Arabic, but I know for everyone that does, this is great news. Websites that can be accessed using actual Arabic as opposed to a Latin-script interpretation of it (we have all seen things like 3asha!) will undoubtedly make the Internet more easily accessible to millions of people with Arabic as their native language.  People won’t need to guess whether a sound in Arabic was expressed with an “o” or an “ou” anymore!

The Qatar Domains Registry will be making most of the Qatar-specific domain names available to the public by August 2011. Right now they are testing the new domains with select organizations, including ictQATAR’s site, which is now available using the Arabic URL http://الاعلي-للاتصالات.قطر .In the next phase of launch Qatar domain names will be made available to government institutions, schools and not-for-profit organizations, then to trademark and IP holders.

Yay Qatar!

There are many people who are proclaiming that the introduction of non-Latin script domain names is the biggest change to the Internet in history. This may be true, but only if people actually start using the new domain names. There are many that are accustomed to the old way and perfectly happy. Hopefully people will see the benefits of having their sites accessible through a variety of languages. And of course, let’s not forget, there is definitely a shortage of available .com names out there – we have all been frustrated at some point trying to register one – so with new languages about to come to domain names, options will abound!

Congratulations Qatar on being among the first to launch Arabic domain names – very exciting new for the country and Arabic speakers around the world!